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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25919788">A life saved</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rogercat/pseuds/Rogercat'>Rogercat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Disowned family, Dorne, F/M, Family Drama, Fix-It, Future Romance, Gen, House Martell, Kings &amp; Queens, Rhaella deserves better, The Red Keep (ASoIaF), Water Gardens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:36:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,943</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25919788</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rogercat/pseuds/Rogercat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aegon V have enough of his children not thinking aheard of how their actions will affect others, and Rhaella ends up as the future consort to Doran instead</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aria Martell/Ihsan Jordayne, Betha Blackwood/Aegon V Targaryen, Doran Martell/Rhaella Targaryen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>79</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Southern Renaissance (Dorne Renaissance)</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A life saved</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>In my stories, the parents of Doran, Elia and Oberyn is named Aria and Ihsan</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Later half of the year 257 A.C, the Red Keep:  </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Thirty three year-old Aria Martell, the future ruling Princess of Dorne, was a rare guest here at the royal court. She had not been here since five years ago, when her last misscarriage happened and she chose to return home to her family. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“They say that prince Jahaerys and princess Shaera have been acting oddly laterly...something about that wood witch always being around Duncan and his Jenny of Oldstone…” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She had a growing feeling of unease about that, and for a good reason. Prince Aerys and princess Rhaella, two of the three grandchildren outside their cousin Steffon Baratheon, was born only little over a year between the siblings. And with their parents being brother and sister, becoming the first Targaryen brother-sister pair to marry each other since Aegon VI and his sister-wife Naerys, it did not promise anything good. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Princess, we hear that your heir, daughter and younger son are healthy. How is it with your husband?” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Of course, there were a few whispers that her husband was the reason why she had been so unfortunate when getting children, that his asthma and resulting health issues were behind it. But Aria knew better. It was the Targaryen blood from Daenerys, who had wed Maron Martell, because the inbreeding in the generations prior to her was like a poison. Which was why so every member of the Martell family was always told to find a spouse as distantly related to House Martell as possible, or even better, not related to them at all. All to fight against the Targaryen inbreeding and carefully breed it out of their bloodline over the generations. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Ihsan and I have agreed that Oberyn shall be our last child. We have spent ten years creating a family, and sadly Mother Rhoyne reclaimed five of the eight children she gave us.”   </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>ARE YOU EVEN AWARE OF WHAT </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>NONSENSE</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span> YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!?!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Oh dear, to hear king Aegon V shout like that was not a good sign. He was rather even-tempered, and some said that he had always been too soft on his four oldest children instead of giving them a penalty that matched how they had messed up with the broken betrothals, but to hear him sounding wroth in that manner reminded that he was the son of Maekar. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I will be out in the gardens if the King seeks me later.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Aria was not in the mood of seeing another Targaryen family drama be played out in front of her own eyes, if Aegon's and queen Betha's three oldest children had been her siblings, they would have found themselves in very deep water of consequences about their idiotic ways of breaking the betrothals because her mother Aminah would never accept her children breaking a promise of future marriage in a such way. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Aria was summoned later, it was to the queen's bedchamber, as Betha sadly was rather unlikely to survive the influenza she suffered from because this winter proved itself a harsh one and many people had died from the cold or from illnesses caused by the winter. The queen of Westeros kept herself apart from her family in order to not risk any of them catching the illness from her, but the King still visited his wife by keeping a safe distance to her sickbed and even kept daily discussions to the extent that she was able to listen and respond.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You called for me, my King?” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>With the shadow of wroth in his eyes, and Aegon clearly trying his best to not let that feeling control him, Aria knew that it must be true, for Jahaerys and Shaera suddenly found themselves dragged off to a septry and a motherhouse in different parts of the capital this forenoon. Even the disgraced Duncan and his Jenny had been spotted dragged off by the Kingsguard members, some courtiers even claiming that ser Duncan the Tall, the Lord Commander flat out had tossed her wood witch into the Black Cells. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Princess Aria Martell. Please tell us, my wifé and I, truthfully: </span>
  <em>
    <span>is your oldest son Doran already promised in marriage or can there be a match between him and our granddaughter Rhaella even if she is two years older than him?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>That question confirmed what Aria had feared this morning, that Jaehaerys and Shaera were truly blind to that their two children were most unlikely to develop romantic feelings for each other, and only saw the other in a normal sibling way. That Aerys and Rhaella might end up becoming a new form of Aegon IV the “Unworthy” and Naerys Targaryen if they were forced to marry like the Targaryens of ancient times. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I am a fourth generation descendant of Daenerys and Maron. Four generations of trying to remove the inbreeding she sadly bought into our line without meaning it. Doran is a fifth generation, and you, Your Majesties, are the third generation of a Targaryen marrying a non-relative to wife, after Myriah Martell and Dyanna Dayne. Rhaella may be the offspring of two siblings with the same set of parents, but looking to the three women before that, with two being Dornish and queen Betha herself being from the Riverlands, she is much less of a second Daenerys in terms of lineage.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>With her curtsy, Aria agreed to take the royal granddaughter as her future daughter-in-law. She would have preferred to let Doran choose his wife himself, just like how she had chosen Ihsan as her Prince consort despite him being a third son of House Jordayne, but if this could save Rhaella from a unhappy marriage and not let the Targaryen start their incestous marriages again, it would be worth it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~X~X~X~X~X~X</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Some weeks later, the Water Gardens:</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“No, Oberyn. No, no. You are not to trip into the pools and risk drowning,” Ihsan scolded his youngest child gently when he felt the now very familiar tug on the harness he had put on his second son to avoid Oberyn crawling over the edge to the pools. As the leash was tied to Ihsan's belt, this meant that the youngest prince of Dorne did his best to start a tug of war for their freedom. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Daaaaaaaah!” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Doran, who was reading a simple story for the one-and-a half-year older Elia in his lap, looked up from the book for a moment at the furious cry from his baby brother. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Padre, I think he is going to tire out himself if he keeps doing that.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Funny Oby!” Elia spoke up, while Ihsan made no moves of letting Oberyn win this battle of wills. Instead, the future Prince consort picked up his youngest to carry him back inside. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Come on, children. We will write a letter to your grandmother later together. And Doran, please do not forget to play some games with Rhaella since she asked for it earlier.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It had been a great surprise when Aria returned from the capital far earlier than planned, and with the Targaryen princess along on the ship. But once told the reason, the ruling Princess Aminah had agreed that this course of action was for the best. Besides, as the wife of the heir apparent, Rhaella would have several years to grow into her role as the consort to a Prince of Dorne and make herself familiar with the life such a position meant. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Right now, Aria had summoned Rhaella to tell of the latest news from the royal court. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“So...mother and father had their marriage annulled, and are to spend the rest of their lives among the Faith? And the same happened to uncle Duncan and Jenny?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Rhaella looked over the map of the Seven Kingdoms where Aria pointed out where the two couples had been split apart. Aegon V had chosen to send his oldest son to the Wall and swearing the vows of the Night's Watch as he was the one to “foolishly inspire his siblings to break their betrothals”, Shaera becoming a silent sister somewhere in the Reach close to Highgarden and Jahaerys locked into into a septry near Riverrun. Jenny of Oldstone? Ending up as a septa in a small motherhouse on a remote island in the Stormlands, unlikely to ever leave. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Your grandparents chose the places of punishment well. Your parents ended up in the regions where they would have gotten their intended spouses, having to live with the knowledge that had they not broken those betrothals, they could have been living a very different life now.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The wood witch had been punished for her claiming that the Prince that was Promised would be born from the line of Aerys and Rhaella, which Jahaerys and Shaera had interpreted as that their children were meant to be a new brother-sister marriage, by being burned alive at the stake for witchcraft outside King's Landing, Aegon officially saying that she had played a less than honest role in the romance between his oldest son and Jenny, because while the King hoped to improve the lives of the smallfolk, actually having one of his children marrying a commoner was not part of those reforms he intended to do. Jahaerys and Shaira insisting to Aegon that Aerys and Rhaella had to marry each other despite their protests about it, was the final straw. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>With his father and uncle removed from the succession, Aerys was now the Prince of Dragonstone and promised in marriage to a younger daughter of Jason Lannister, a cousin to his close friend Tywin, the marriage intended to happen three months after the girl's sixteenth birthday to avoid that she was too young for pregnancy and risking to die in childbirth. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I am glad that grandfather and grandmother finally put their feet down and removed the children who made House Targaryen a laughing stock or acting as if the noble houses of Westeros were unworthy of them.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>So there were a lot of reasons behind that happy smile Rhaella greeted Doran with, when he came to ask her if she would like to play cards. It might be two years between them, but as his grandmother Aminah had pointed out for her oldest grandson when the betrothal was revealed for all of Dorne; Two years of age difference meant little in adulthood, and it meant that she would be 18 years old when he came of age in six years, a young woman who had been allowed to let her body mature from girlhood into becoming a maiden and would not risk to be too young at her first pregnancy. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You know, Doran, do you not think it would be fun to travel to Essos at some point after our marriage? Seeing the Free cities, the cultures that are so different from Westeros,” she asked after that he had lost the first turn of playing by a random beginner's luck from her. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Would be pleasant, indeed. My parents travelled on such a journey in the second year after their marriage and padre jokes about that I am the result from the journey back home because madre never is seasick otherwise. I wonder if it would be possible for you to end up with some Essosi ladies-in-waiting?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Yes, the future looked promising. The royal family had sunk in family members thanks to Aegon V disowning his three oldest children, but once his three grandchildren were old enough for marriage, his later descendants would not be born to too-young parents and the Targaryen custom of marriages between siblings would finally end with Jahaerys and Shaera as the final ones to do the ancient custom. </span>
</p>
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